Q409 Annual Report to Shareholders – pt.1

Another year o-o-o-ver, a new one just begu-u-un…and so this is listserv.

Having knocked over nog in our rush to rip the last page from our Nuns Having Fun calendar, we wanted to now take a moment to drop a note saying thank you for pretty much everything that came our way band-wise this year. And to hope you in turn, had a great holiday time and have the best twenty-ten.

To recap the odds &sods of ’09…

Even by our time-tunnel wrens calendar, where months pass like days and days pass like picoseconds, 2009 came in like a lion and went out like another lion in a hell of a hurry, kind of pooping on our plans while it did.Ok, that makes no sense. But as the year ran by, besides the mundane behind-the-scenes stuff that defines any job (even the coveted career path of ‘indie superstar’) we did get at least a few things done…

launch our new website, release a first official new band song in 10 years or so, post a hilariously & misguidedly & optimistically ambitious year-end wrap-up note like this one last January, trot out a few more demos, pretend to start recording a handful of times, record a new one on the fly for friends with cameras, play a bunch of shows, we laughed, we cried, we changed tenses, I think we all learned something, and to finish it all off, threw ourselves a three-show 20th-year party at Maxwell’s in Hoboken.

Actually, put that way, I can’t believe the year didn’t take us longer.

The 20th Anniversary shows at Maxwell’s were a hoot and meant a lot to us so again, our thanks to all who came out. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, the good news is that we were able to record two of the three shows with an eye toward releasing a live album. The bad news is that those recordings reveal a band operating on the level of trained animals struggling with human instruments, and a woodsy call-of-the-wild relationship to pitch.So maybe we’ll just focus on the new stuff.

But what we do have from Maxwell’s are the “20 Years of Juvenilia” ep of unreleased older songs and the new 20th Anniversary shirts that we crowed about earlier. You can hit the links above to read more about each or just advance your token directly to ‘gimme’ and buy them in our store .

We were also humbly honored to have the Meadowlands end up on some folks ‘best albums of the decade’ lists. But not surprised, really. That record is tantamount to genius.Kidding. You can read about that here. [UPDATE: and now also here]

Out: Old In: New

To put the finishing polish on our 20th year, we have an ongoing list of things you think of as old but are in fact, younger than us, on our Facebook & Twitter pages. Just to drive home how long ago 1989 really was.

And we drop the ball into the metaphoric Times Square of our sweet 2010 with a show in Boston, 1/16/10 at the Middle East. Note that our band turns 21 this year and so is legal to buy liquor as a corporate entity. Party.

And to head the big question off at the pass, we will have a new record in 2010….. Jerry will have a new copy of Midnight Oil's "Diesel & Dust", Kevin will have ‘Hasselhoff Sings, This Time with Strings’, Greg will have ‘Tarkus’, and Charles will have “Ornette Coleman: Now I Play Uke Too”.